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Page 16
Now it is difficult to describe the time I spent in the land of delight,
because it was all so unlike the life of the world, and yet was so
strangely like it. There was work going on there, I found, but the
nature of it I could not discern, because that was kept hidden from me.
Men and women excused themselves from our company, saying they must
return to their work; but most of the time was spent in leisurely
converse about things which I confess from the first did not interest
me. There was much wit and laughter, and there were constant games and
assemblies and amusements. There were feasts of delicious things, music,
dramas. There were books read and discussed; it was just like a very
cultivated and civilised society. But what struck me about the people
there was that it was all very restless and highly-strung, a perpetual
tasting of pleasures, which somehow never pleased. There were two people
there who interested me most. One was a very handsome and courteous
man, who seemed to desire my company, and spoke more freely than the
rest; the other a young man, who was very much occupied with the girl,
my companion, and made a great friendship with her. The elder of the
two, for I must give them names, shall be called Charmides, which seems
to correspond with his stately charm, and the younger may be known as
Lucius.
I sat one day with Charmides, listening to a great concert of stringed
and wind instruments, in a portico which gave on a large sheltered
garden. He was much absorbed in the music, which was now of a brisk and
measured beauty, and now of a sweet seriousness which had a very
luxurious effect upon my mind. "It is wonderful to me," said Charmides,
as the last movement drew to a close of liquid melody, "that these
sounds should pass into the heart like wine, heightening and uplifting
the thought--there is nothing so beautiful as the discrimination of
mood with which it affects one, weighing one delicate phrase against
another, and finding all so perfect."
"Yes," I said, "I can understand that; but I must confess that there
seems to me something wanting in the melodies of this place. The music
which I loved in the old days was the music which spoke to the soul of
something further yet and unattainable; but here the music seems to have
attained its end, and to have fulfilled its own desire."
"Yes," said Charmides, "I know that you feel that; your mind is very
clear to me, up to a certain point; and I have sometimes wondered why
you spend your time here, because you are not one of us, as your friend
Cynthia is."
I glanced, as he spoke, to where Cynthia sat on a great carved settle
among cushions, side by side with Lucius, whispering to him with a
smile.
"No," I said, "I do not think I have found my place yet, but I am here,
I think, for a purpose, and I do not know what that purpose is."
"Well," he said, "I have sometimes wondered myself. I feel that you may
have something to tell me, some message for me. I thought that when I
first saw you; but I cannot quite perceive what is in your mind, and I
see that you do not wholly know what is in mine. I have been here for a
long time, and I have a sense that I do not get on, do not move; and yet
I have lived in extreme joy and contentment, except that I dread to
return to life, as I know I must return. I have lived often, and always
in joy--but in life there are constantly things to endure, little things
which just ruffle the serenity of soul which I desire, and which I may
fairly say I here enjoy. I have loved beauty, and not intemperately; and
there have been other people--men and women--whom I have loved, in a
sense; but the love of them has always seemed a sort of interruption to
the life I desired, something disordered and strained, which hurt me,
and kept me away from the peace I desired--from the fine weighing of
sounds and colours, and the pleasure of beautiful forms and lines; and I
dread to return to life, because one cannot avoid love and sorrow, and
mean troubles, which waste the spirit in vain."
"Yes," I said, "I can understand what you feel very well, because I too
have known what it is to desire to live in peace and beauty, not to be
disturbed or fretted; but the reason, I think, why it is dangerous, is
not because life becomes too _easy_. That is not the danger at all--life
is never easy, whatever it is! But the danger is that it grows too
solemn! One is apt to become like a priest, always celebrating holy
mysteries, always in a vision, with no time for laughter, and disputing,
and quarrelling, and being silly and playing. It is the poor body again
that is amiss. It is like the camel, poor thing; it groans and weeps,
but it goes on. One cannot live wholly in a vision; and life does not
become more simple so, but more complicated, for one's time and energy
are spent in avoiding the sordid and the tiresome things which one
cannot and must not avoid. I remember, in an illness which I had, when I
was depressed and fanciful, a homely old doctor said to me, 'Don't be
too careful of yourself: don't think you can't bear this and that--go
out to dinner--eat and drink rather too much!' It seemed to be coarse
advice, but it was wise."
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